In a “highlights” episode this week, an actress was “Dancing with the Stars” when her dress began tearing and threatened to cause a Janet Jackson-type wardrobe malfunction.
Millions of viewers waited to see ... well, to see what they might see. But I grabbed the remote and started flipping.
Not that I’m more virtuous than the next guy. But my son was watching, and I want
him to be more virtuous.
“Dancing” seems like a fairly innocuous show, by 21st century standards.
The participants at least try to keep their clothes on, such as they are. And nobody gets bludgeoned to death.
But I can’t help thinking that the ratings wouldn’t be quite so high if the necklines weren’t quite so low.
And what message does that send to our sons, much less to our daughters?
Girls know the difference between “sexy” and “not sexy” by the time they get out of kindergarten, according to researchers from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.
Psychologists used two paper dolls, identical in every way except one was dressed like a trendy teenager and the other hardly dressed at all.
Which doll would young girls want to be?
Which doll would they want to be friends with?
Even as young as 6-years-old, the vast majority of girls chose the “sexy” one.
And the more television they watched, the “sexier” they wanted to be.
But the researchers discovered an even more important influence.
Kids will look for role models on TV, but they’ll look first at their own parents.
If a mother feels self-confident about her own looks, her daughter will likely be confident, too.
And self-confident girls prefer the stylish, fully dressed dolls, according to the research.
It would be interesting to repeat the experiment with 6-year-old boys.
I bet there’s a strong link between little boys who prefer “sexy” classmates and fathers who watch “sexy” TV.
If we don’t want our daughters to be ogled, we have to stop teaching our sons to do the ogling.
Turn the channel.
